I Was Putin’s Pawn

I decided I could not work for a station that was spewing lies to justify Russian military intervention in a sovereign country. For months, I had wanted to quit, but decided I could not delay any longer. Nothing was worth being part of the Putin propaganda machine.

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On the Wednesday I planned to be my last day, every story relating to Ukraine seemed designed to push Putin’s warped view toward the country. I had a pre-taped interview that day with none other than Ron Paul. The news director emailed me a list of questions like this one: “Isn’t it fascinating how US officials and the mainstream media are able to quickly arrive at a moral judgment condemning foreign interventionism on the part of Russia while, at the same time, blocking out of their minds all the foreign interventionism on the part of the US government for the past many decades?”

I didn’t ask Paul all the questions I was given, and I substituted some of my own, including what the United States should do in light of Russia invading. How should Washington respond? Later, I saw the video editor cutting out “Russia invading” after, he said, higher-ups ordered him to do so. (Russia is not characterizing its actions as an invasion.) The uncensored version of the interview was posted online briefly before it was taken down and replaced with the edited one.

I decided that not only did I have to quit, I had to let viewers know why—to tell them the truth about RT and its misleading coverage. I went to the bathroom, wrote down some heartfelt notes and prepared for my exit a couple hours later. It was then that I contacted Jamie Kirchick, a writer with The Daily Beast, and told him my resignation was imminent. I first reached out to Kirchick a few months ago after he criticized Russia’s anti-gay laws on the RT airwaves. I told him it was a bold move and I was willing to eventually come forward with the truth about RT. I informed him that the time had come and how I planned to do it. He published the exclusive story. Little did I know just how far word of my resignation would go.

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The response has been unbelievable. I was flooded with interview requests from national and international news organizations. The clip went viral quickly, with millions of hits on YouTube.

I’ve received thousands of messages from people around the world voicing their support.

“I am from a group of Judaism called Hasidim where females are not particularly seen as brave and smart,” one of the most touching messages said. “So after seeing the video of your resignation I asked my wife and 3 daughters to sit down with me and watch it together to show them how brave and smart a woman can be.”

But I also received some hateful messages. RT’s official response was that my actions were a “self-promotional stunt.” Critics accused me of “selling out to the mainstream media.”

Walh with Steven Colbert. | Photo courtesy of the author

After I went on CNN and mentioned the way my Ron Paul interview was edited, RT then reposted the original version. (There are now two versions online, one with and one without the edited question). The network later asked Paul for a comment about the interview—misleading him to believe that I quit because his message was censored—and posted Paul’s response:

“Wahl’s questions were all legitimate,” Paul stated. “I would say that it essentially all got in there in a fair and balanced manner but she implied they edited something I said that might have benefited her position. I don’t recall any of that. I thought the report and the essence of what they put on TV was exactly the message I was trying to get out.”

That response and the way RT misrepresented the situation led to a deluge of hate tweets from Paul’s supporters accusing me of lying about the interview, and saying that it was proof that my resignation was fraudulent.

I asked Paul’s people to set the record straight. I explained what happened, even providing two versions of the video as proof that it was the editing of my question that I took issue with. His media representative responded to my concerns by saying: “We are actually on hiatus until the 24th. I don’t want to rush to respond to your request or the details in your email but I will discuss this with my colleagues and will present this to Dr. Paul when it is appropriate.”

I also got a long voicemail from someone named Kevin Gosztola, who represented himself as a journalist with First Look Media, Pierre Omidyar’s new organization, though it turns out he’s not employed there. “We’re going to be putting forward some allegations about you and your time at RT,” the message said. After about two minutes of accusations and rambling, he concluded: “If you have something to say for this story to defend yourself before we go ahead and publish, you have about 24 hours.” I never called him back. (He left a similarly long harassing message to The Daily Beast, which checked with First Look, only to find that he was not an employee.)

Gosztola never published an attack on me. But nearly two weeks later, one of Abby Martin’s close friends (whom she invited to the RT holiday party, where the two of them posed for a picture giving the middle finger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) wrote a story on the website Truthdig that claimed to “uncover” that my resignation was part of a greater conspiracy, stating, “Behind the coverage of Wahl’s dramatic protest, a cadre of neoconservatives was celebrating a public relations coup.” It was surreal to read such an elaborate and far-fetched story about me.

Some of the vitriol came from within RT. One of my former colleagues tweeted the Truthdig link along with this message: “it’s a pity when someone claiming to be committed to ‘disseminating the truth’ turns out to be a big ball of lies.” And others were quoted in the article itself describing me as “an apolitical, deeply disgruntled employee seeking an exit strategy.”

But from what I can tell it’s a small handful of RT loyalists behind the hate. Several current and former employees have sent me messages commending me for finally blowing the whistle on this sketchy organization that poses as legitimate news.

More than anything, I feel like a weight has been lifted since I resigned. The outpouring of support has reaffirmed my belief in seeking and spreading the truth. As for my “self-promotional publicity stunt,” if telling truth leads to better opportunities, some of my faith in humanity will be restored.

Elizabeth Wahl is a correspondent based in Washington, D.C. with no plans of visiting Russia in the near future. She is interested in rejoining the labor force with a news organization dedicated to reporting the truth.